Two All-Ireland football tickets reach ‘€74,000’ on eBay

A pair of tickets for the All-Ireland football final between Dublin and Mayo on Sunday week are selling for more than €1,000 on eBay.

The eBay seller, when contacted by The Irish Times, said he had a current “legitimate” bid of €1,105 for the pair of tickets for the upper Hogan Stand. The face value of the tickets is €80 each.

The seller said the tickets are selling for “the best price offered”.

The All-Ireland football final takes place on September 18th in Croke Park.

Mayo reached the final with a 2-13 to 0-14 win over Tipperary in the semi-final, while defending champions Dublin qualified after a thrilling 0-22 to 2-14 victory over Kerry.

The top bid on the advert stood at a whopping price at time of writing, at least €74,000, and the bids were rising at a crazy pace, but huge bids made on the tickets in the past two days are not likely to be legitimate.

“I believe there are false bids on my tickets, if you want to buy them contact me directly on my email,” the seller said.

“I will be selling these tickets tonight (Tuesday) so if you are serious about them then make me an offer and I will sell to highest offer, will come back to offers made tonight. Tickets will be available to collect on Friday in Dublin.”

The GAA has previously said it has procedures in place to cancel tickets bought on the black market or from touts.

“We have robust procedures in place. We have the facility to cancel any ticket in any part of the ground if we know that it has been sold on the black market,” said Alan Milton, GAA head of communications.

“So if someone gets a ticket off a website or through some other touting source, they could well find themselves blocked at the turnstiles. They can end up with an expensive ticket that’s useless.

“We have done that in the past. Every year, we have thousands of genuine GAA supporters who can’t get tickets, which is why we have a zero-tolerance policy. Our distribution system is as tight as it possibly can be but obviously we can’t keep track of every single ticket. But we act immediately if we know a ticket has been sold on the black market.”